Breath of Life
by cassikat
Summary: There was so much he wanted to show his daughter, so much he wanted to teach her. What if the Doctor remembered something he could do before it was too late? AU ending of The Doctor's Daughter.


Standard Disclaimer: Don't own them, just playing with the BBC's toys.

AN: While I was writing another fic and pulled this particular deus ex machina for saving a life, I got to thinking. Why not do this for Jenny? And then this tiny little thing came bursting out and made me wish I'd had this idea way back when I started One Decision. Ah well.

If anyone wishes to use this as a starting chapter for their own Jenny lives story, or even just yoink the idea instead and use your own writing, feel free. Drop me a line though - I love Jenny in the TARDIS stories, and I'd love to read more of them. :D

As always, much love to tkelparis for giving this a once-over and digging up a title. Love ya! *mwah!*

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Breath of Life

* * *

As they tracked the scent of flowers, they entered into a lush garden, what might possibly be a hydroponics department gone wild, and the Doctor grinned on seeing what was at the centre of it. "Oh, yes! Yes! Isn't this brilliant?"

Donna stared at the pedestal supporting a huge sphere, and was briefly mesmerised by the swirling, glowing gas within. She shook herself out of admiring the overgrown garden globe when the Doctor tossed his overcoat over a nearby device and she asked, "Is that the Source?"

Jenny had a soft, awed smile on her face, and she raised her hand as if to touch the sphere, then dropped it again. "It's beautiful," she breathed, amazed at the sight.

Martha had a puzzled frown as she looked at the sphere. "What is it?"

"Terraforming," the Doctor exclaimed. "It's a third generation terraforming device!"

"So...why are we suddenly in Kew Gardens?" Donna asked with a puzzled look.

"Because that's what it does," the Doctor replied, lightly resting his hand on the device. "All this, only bigger. Much bigger! This sphere, this is its transit state. Producing all this must help keep it stable before they finally-"

He was interrupted by the abrupt entrance of both human and Hath forces, both of which came to a halt and aimed their guns at each other the moment they caught sight of the opposing force.

Before anyone could pull the trigger, the Doctor jumped in front of the terraforming device, arms flung out as if he could stop them with his bare hands. "Stop! Hold your fire!"

As both sides came to a halt, General Cobb growled. "What is this? Some kind of trap?"

"You said you wanted this war over." The Doctor said, meeting the man's eyes over his ready pistol.

"I want this war won!" Cobb shouted back and firmed his grip.

"You can't win. No one can." He glanced from Cobb and his human soldiers to the Hath forces and back again. "You don't even know why you're here. Your whole history, it's just Chinese whispers. Getting more distorted the more it's passed on."

He stepped back to stand beside the sphere and pointed to it, then cupped his hands around it, almost as if to showcase it. "This is the Source. This is what you're fighting over. A device to rejuvenate a planet's ecosystem. It's nothing mystical - it's from a laboratory, not some creator."

He swept the Hath and humans both up in his gaze as he continued his explanation. "It's a bubble of gases. A cocktail of stuff for accelerated evolution. Methane, hydrogen, ammonia, amino acids, proteins, nucleic acids. It's used to make barren planets habitable. Look around you! It's not for killing, it's bringing life! If you allow it, it can lift you out of these dark tunnels and into the bright, bright sunlight!" He stole a glance at his daughter and spoke, not only to the soldiers of both species, but to her as well. "No more fighting. No more killing."

His hearts swelled with joy at her understanding smile, and he lifted the sphere off it's stabilisation pedestal. "I'm the Doctor, and I declare this war is over!" He then threw it to the ground in front of him, and stood there in satisfaction as the gasses and energy escaped and spread out into the air before beginning their rise to the top of the ship.

All around him, every armed soldier was starting to lay down their weapons, and he dared to let himself believe that this war would have a peaceful ending.

Curious, Jenny came to stand next to her father. He'd been explaining everything so far, it was logical to assume he'd have the answer to further questions. And she had a lot. "What's happening?"

He turned to smile at her. "The gasses will escape and trigger the terraforming process."

"But what does that mean?" She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. Oh, if there had only been more information in her download!

"It means a new world," he said with a grin.

Jenny grinned too, despite not understanding terraforming, and laughed with sheer delight at the idea - a whole new world, and they hadn't even gone anywhere yet! But a flash of movement caught her eye, and she saw General Cobb aim at her father. The grin fell from her face, and in desperation she put herself in front of the man who'd not only progenated her, but taught her that there was more to life than her programming. "No!"

Being shot was strange, she thought - a hard hot pain, and kinetic force that threw her into her father's arms. Automatically her hand flew up to cover the impact site, though her programming told her it was pointless. An impact there would be lethal very shortly. She barely notice her father lowering her down to the ground and kneeling beside her as he continued to hold her in his arms, supporting her on one knee.

"Jenny? Jenny! Talk to me, Jenny!" The Doctor clutched his daughter in his arms, shocked. This couldn't be happening, not when he'd finally started to believe, to accept...he couldn't be losing another child! He barely noticed Martha glance at her injury, all he could think of was that he was losing another child to war.

Jenny blinked as a wet drop hit her face. It couldn't be rain, they were inside a ship. Her father must be crying because she got shot. It was a soldier's lot though, and she'd saved him - she should say something to make him stop crying. But the only thing that came to mind was, "A new world. It's beautiful."

Fighting tears and failing, the Doctor choked out. "Jenny? Be strong now. You need to hold on. D'you hear me? We've got things to do, you and me. Hey? Hey? We can go anywhere. Everywhere. You choose." She couldn't die, she was Time Lord, like him! She had to live!

"That sounds good," Jenny managed to murmur in a whisper. Oh, she wanted to see other worlds with her dad and Donna, she wanted it so much! But she was dying and wouldn't ever get a chance to. It wasn't fair, she managed to think as her eyes drifted closed while her dad was talking...

"You're my daughter and we've only just got started. You're gonna be great, Jenny. You're gonna be more than great, you're gonna be amazing! You hear me? Jenny?" A strangled noise escaped him as her eyes closed on her last exhale, and another tear escaped his control to splash on her cheek.

One hitched breath became two, then three, and as he couldn't feel any signs of regeneration occurring, he growled in challenge to Death itself. "I am not losing another child!" In desperation he cast his mind through all of his knowledge and hit upon a possible answer. It had saved his TARDIS, long ago and in a parallel world...it might just save his daughter. Either by healing her or sparking off a regeneration, he didn't care which, but he was not going to sit there and let her die!

Donna wiped some tears of her own away and watched as the Doctor appeared to brace himself against...something, then bent over his daughter and blew into her mouth. Like CPR, only he wasn't doing anything else. Just that one exhale, that might have had a hint of light in it, and then he went back to holding her.

A minute went by, and then two, which became four, and then Martha, trying to help him accept what the truth was, said, "There's no sign, Doctor. There's no regeneration-"

Except then she felt like the stupidest human that had ever said something idiotic, because Jenny started breathing again. Shallowly, but her chest was moving rhythmically.

It was left to Donna to ask, because Martha was gaping like a fish. "Doctor? How is she alive again? We all watched her die."

The Doctor looked up at his ginger companion with a tear-streaked smile of joy. "Ten years. Ten years of my life. It healed the damage and brought her back. Worth every single second of it." He bent over his daughter again and kissed her forehead, and just after he sat back up, her eyes fluttered open.

Jenny blinked her eyes open, and managed a confused frown. She'd died, hadn't she? But here she was, still in her dad's arms...was this what came after life, then? But maybe not - he was still crying, so she sighed to get his attention. If she hadn't died, then she needed medical attention so she wouldn't.

"There you are," the Doctor said, beaming and not caring that everyone was watching him shed tears of joy like rain. "Back again. I told you that you were going to be amazing!"

"My chest..." she managed, feeling much more puzzled by the fact there was a lump under her hand than that she was alive. "...a lump..." Why was saying anything so tiring, if she was alive?

"Oh, that'd be the bullet," the Doctor babbled and gently moved her hand away from the hole in her shirt, just long enough to fish out the bullet where it had been pushed out by the healing process. "I did something to help you heal very very quickly, and the bullet got pushed out." He looked at it, then pocketed it because there was a bit of her blood on it. Wasn't any point in leaving any more would-be military leaders the chance to make more super-soldiers, was there?

"How?" Jenny asked, finding a second wind the longer she was awake, though she'd still rather take a nap. If she could be assured she wasn't going to die during it. "I was shot in the chest. I should be dead."

"Any parent in the universe would do anything to save their child. Even give their own life. Or part of it, in my case," He smoothed some of her hair away from her face, then wiped his own - the tears, now that they'd stopped falling, were itching. "It's a Time Lord thing...oh, you've got so much to learn, Jenny!"

"Now?" Oh, she hoped not. She wanted food, and lots of it, and then somewhere to bunk down and sleep. She felt reasonably whole, now that she was more awake, but oh, she was tired! And starving!

"No," he laughed. "Not right now. There's all the time in the world to learn." Now that he was sure his daughter was going to stay alive and that he wasn't dreaming, he cradled her in both his arms and staggered to his feet.

With Donna and Martha silently following, he started his slow trek back to the TARDIS with his daughter in his arms, only pausing long enough to tell the humans and Hath one thing. "When you start this new world of yours, make it a world that brings life, not a world of hatred and killing."


End file.
